Su Mo stumbled down the stairs and made it to the hotel’s first floor. She politely turned away the staff who’d noticed her poor complexion and come to ask if she was all right, then ducked into a shadowy corner and took out her phone.

She opened her contacts and called a number she’d never have dialed before.

The call connected almost immediately.

“Hello? Is that Su Xi?”

At the sound of that voice, the tension in Su Xi’s nerves eased. Tears welled up at once and pattered onto the floor.

The girl choked out,

“Lord Mu, I… my sister’s going to die…”

There was a pause on the other end, then an urgent question.

“Hm? What happened to Su Mo? With her abilities, she should be…”

“We… took on that mission you said only you could complete.”

Silence. Then came a furious, merciless scolding.

“That was beyond reckless! What did you think the Taboo Species group was? Those creatures can wipe out entire continental regions. What makes a mid-tier Silver Mutant like you think you can face one of those monsters in battle?”

Su Xi’s vision was so blurred by tears that she couldn’t see a thing.

“Lord Mu, I was wrong. I know I’m stupid, I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have egged my sister on to do something like this. But… but I’m the one who’s at fault, not my sister. Please, Lord Mu, save her. Please!”

“I’ll listen from now on. I won’t run off anymore. I’ll be a good girl…”

“My sister… my sister’s innocent…”

“I-I-I…”

“Waaah! Sis… I, I…”

Su Xi was crying too hard to speak. She hugged her knees and shook with sobs.

A sigh reached her ears, followed by a soothing voice.

“All right, stop crying. I’ll get Su Mo out.”

The voice was clear and loud, nothing like the tinny sound of someone speaking through a phone.

Su Xi raised her head from where she sat hugging her knees and sobbing. A well-proportioned figure stood before her, blocking the light and casting a huge shadow over her.

An overwhelming joy she could hardly believe welled up inside Su Xi. She looked up in disbelief—and saw the face she’d wished for, the face she wanted to see more than any other.

Su Xi cried out,

“Lord Mu?!”

Mu Yuan nodded and spoke gently.

“Stop crying. Where’s your sister? Take me to her.”

They didn’t need to say much more. Su Xi grabbed Mu Yuan and ran for the stairs, racing all the way.

Meanwhile, in the hallway.

The insect picked up the phone Zhou Heng had dropped in the hallway. Just as it was about to turn around, the two antennae atop its head—the ones that sharpened its senses—began to twitch rapidly.

The insect’s expression turned grave. It immediately spun around and looked toward a pair of half-open, blue-gray double doors.

Footsteps drew closer. As the right-hand door of the pair opened, a petite figure darted out.

The insect recognized the girl—the one who’d escaped earlier.

The moment she saw it, Su Xi asked urgently,

“Where’s my sister?”

The insect didn’t look at Su Xi.

Its gaze was fixed beyond the double doors, on an aura that made even it tremble.

“Come out.”

The insect’s voice was like a blade’s edge, painful to hear.

Grinning, Mu Yuan pushed open the left-hand door and slowly walked to a stop directly opposite the insect.

The insect took a deep breath. Instinctive fear made it start trembling despite itself.

A Disaster Species. The human man standing before it was undoubtedly a Disaster Species. His aura wasn’t as powerful as that of the Upper Calamity Species whose sudden appearance had sent the entire Insect Race into collapse, but being a Disaster Species was proof enough of overwhelming strength.

“You might not be able to kill me.”

The insect warned him.

Mu Yuan straightened up.

“But I…”

The insect vanished in an instant.

Killing intent surged toward them. Before Su Xi could even understand what was happening, her vision blurred, and a tiny, razor-sharp point rushed toward her, growing larger by the second.

It was the tip of the insect’s arm blade, powerful enough to pierce through a diamond of equal thickness with ease. Against that kind of destructive force, Su Xi’s head wouldn’t be much tougher than a water-filled balloon.

A barrier swiftly cut across the insect’s path of attack.

Mu Yuan shifted to the side and struck the edge of the insect’s arm blade with the edge of his hand.

That was exactly what the insect had been waiting for.

It twisted its body into a position no human could manage. Its other arm blade sliced through the air, aimed straight at Mu Yuan’s head.

Mu Yuan seemed to raise his arm in a hurry, placing it directly in the path of the insect’s blade.

The insect gave a disdainful snort.

In its battles against humanity long ago, the insect had faced countless human combatants: soldiers in exoskeletal armor, virtually impervious to blades and bullets; Mutants who could harden their bodies until they were as tough as cutting-edge alloys; and even human mechanical fortresses, steel torrents that filled the insect with dread.

But neither the exoskeletal armor made with humanity’s most advanced materials nor the Mutants who trusted so completely in their own defenses could withstand a single slash of the insect’s arm blade. Even the Upper Calamity Species that had shattered the Insect Race’s entire defensive line chose to dodge the insect’s blade rather than take it head-on.

And yet this Disaster Species before it seemed to have no idea what injury meant, daring to block the blade with nothing but flesh and blood.

The insect was certain it could slice through Mu Yuan’s arm without the slightest resistance, even if it were made of diamond. If the moment allowed, it could keep the blade moving, cut down along Mu Yuan’s neck, and effortlessly snuff out every sign of life in the Disaster Species that made it tremble.

The arm blade slashed toward Mu Yuan’s arm.

In that instant, there was no sound at all. Everything seemed perfectly calm.

The insect felt as if it had stepped into a new world. Everything before its eyes began to slow in a subtle, strange way.

It saw the blade clearly, following its intended path as it sliced through the suit sleeve covering Mu Yuan’s arm.

The silk garment was soft and thin as tofu. It offered almost no resistance before the blade tore through it.

A faint tremor reached the nerves connected to the arm blade after its edge brushed the fine hairs on Mu Yuan’s forearm, then traveled along those nerves to the insect’s brain.

The insect focused its entire mind on this strike. Its concentration was so intense that it could feel every unusual tremor in its arm blade.

The fine hairs were fragile, after all. The blade split them in two, then kept advancing with unshakable force through a span of time so brief it was almost impossible to feel. It kissed the skin of Mu Yuan’s arm. His skin was tough, but the blade was like a lover’s deep kiss—passionate and impossible to resist. It easily pried open its beloved’s teeth and pressed on, deeper.

Beyond the skin, it cut through muscle, nerves, and blood vessels. The blade met nothing but softness, no resistance at all. Then a hard sensation shivered through the hilt. It had to be bone.

The bones in a human forearm.

The bone was hard, but still no match for the arm blade. After a brief pause, the edge pushed on. It had cut a little into the forearm bone, leaving the faintest mark. One more push, and Mu Yuan’s forearm would be severed completely.

Almost. Almost.

The insect was about to succeed.

Even if the blade ran out of force before it could take Mu Yuan’s head, severing his arm would still reduce his combat strength by a huge amount.

For the first time, the insect’s calm mind wavered. It desperately wanted its arm blade to move faster.

One wave rose, and a thousand ripples followed.

Thoughts of every kind flooded the insect’s mind.

In the end, they all came down to one question.

“Why?”

Why couldn’t the arm blade cut any farther?

It had only split the skin, cut through the muscle, and left a tiny mark on the forearm bone. Why had its supposedly unstoppable blade stopped moving?

The moment it lost the initiative, the action stalled for an instant. Mu Yuan, whose reflexes were only a hair slower than the insect’s, reached out and jabbed a finger at the chitin on its chest.

The insect’s biological armor, as strong as thirty centimeters of equivalent alloy, split open in an instant, leaving a finger-sized hole. Mu Yuan’s finger plunged straight into its body.

Its blood flow stalled. Its internal organs ruptured.

The insect choked.

It thought it was going to die.

It was a strange feeling. Su Xi had just blown its head apart, and to the insect that was no worse than losing a strand of hair. Yet Mu Yuan had brought it to the brink of death with a single finger.

The insect hurriedly pulled back, putting as much distance between itself and Mu Yuan as it could.

The man and the insect were back at their original distance, staring into each other’s eyes.

“Thud.” Su Xi fell beside Mu Yuan. Only then did the girl register that the insect had attacked; her body had reacted on instinct.

“I, I, I…”

Without turning his head, Mu Yuan said quietly,

“Don’t stay here if you don’t want to hold me back.”

Su Xi scrambled out of the stairwell.